The Netherlands remains major European drug trader: EU report

A new EU report on drugs says the Netherlands remains a main hub for drug production and trafficking across Europe. In 2014, Rotterdam port handled 7.4 million containers, and the report adds: ‘It takes about three minutes for traffickers to illegally open a container and retrieve a consignment of…100 kg of cocaine distributed in four or five duffel bags.’ Organised crime Organised crime and international violence are characteristic of the drug trade, and crooks help one another too, offering ‘crime-as-a-service’. Cannabis is the most frequently taken drug, with 1% of European adults using it on an almost daily basis, and 22 million adults in the EU taking it in the last year. While most people consume cannabis grown in the EU, resin from Morocco has also been ‘increasing in potency and may be trafficked to the EU alongside other illicit goods and human beings, a trend potentially exacerbated by instability in North Africa and the Middle East’, the report says.